Night

In Night, Madame Schachter's visions and cries of fire and flames initially create fear and panic among the passengers. As her outbursts continue, they lead to frustration and violence as others try...

Madame Schächter is a middle-aged woman in Night who, while on the train to Auschwitz, begins to scream about a fire she sees outside. Her cries foreshadow the fate awaiting the Jews, but the other...

The quote "In front of us flames, In the air that smell of burning flesh" in Night foreshadows the horrific reality awaiting the Jews at Birkenau. Madame Schächter's earlier visions of fire and...

In "Night," Madame Schachter's mental state is ambiguous, as she is perceived both as a madwoman and a prophet. Initially, she is described as a strong but quiet woman who loses her mind after being...

In Elie Wiesel's Night, Madame Schachter's visions of fire on the train to Auschwitz-Birkenau eerily predict the horrors awaiting the Jewish prisoners. Despite being dismissed as hallucinations by...

The literary device exemplified when Madame Schachter's hallucinations come true is foreshadowing. Her repeated cries about seeing fire, initially dismissed as madness, predict the horrific reality...

Wiesel includes Madame Schächter in his memoir as a symbolic harbinger of the horrors to come. Her hysterical visions of fire foreshadow the tragic fate awaiting the Jews in the concentration camps....

In Chapter 2, the passengers on the train quiet Madame Schachter, who is hallucinating and repeatedly screaming about fire, by initially trying to reason with her. When this fails, they resort to...

Madame Schachter's son initially tries to quiet his mother on the train, motivated by both concern and embarrassment over her screams about seeing "fire." His reaction reflects the dehumanization...

Madame Schachter's spirit is broken during the train journey to Auschwitz when her prophetic warnings about the flames and death camps are violently dismissed. Despite being beaten, restrained, and...